Sunday, April 23, 2000

The main hall where we did all our meditation, asanas, and bhajans (yoga and singing). My sanskrit teacher and a japanese yogini. A Hindu mandala (sacred design) in preparation for a puja (ceremony). The priest chants mantras and ceremoniously adds things to the fire. Everyone gets a bindi after the puja. Downstairs from the main hall is where we eat (with our hands). Some of the other westerners, on a tea break. The summer camp yogis show off. Frances.

Life in the ashram would appear an exotic form of torture based on a description of the daily schedule. First, you wake up at 5:30 in the morning, the sky still black. You now have the option of taking a cold shower before settling down in a painful cross-legged position with the purpose of thinking about nothing for half an hour. Of the infinite number of things you are supposed to not think about, one of the more obvious is the fact that you had been successfully achieving this thoughtless state while comfortably sleeping in your bed just a few minutes earlier.

Next, after a consecrated treat and a cup of tea in lieu of breakfast, the asana class begins (Hatha Yoga) where you proceed to obediently and methodically induce your body to feel pain in novel and creative ways, based on the whims of an expert in the field. Once all possibilities of physical comfort have been stretched, bent, and twisted out of you, you are finally allowed sustinence. The caveat is that you must sit on the floor and eat with your hands. And it's not like eating a sandwich or corn on the cob with your hands -- this is rice and sambha, some seriously drippy mush, to be scooped and slurped up in a very primal fashion. After washing up, you are allowed a few minutes repose or a second cold shower before being assigned a menial task like scrubbing the latrines, picking up trash, or sweeping up all the leaves that have fallen since you swept them the day before. By now it's only noon, when you m ight just be rolling out of bed if it were up to you, and you are thoroughly sore and exhausted. You wash your clothes by hand in a tub, take your third cold shower, and now it's time for the afternoon lecture where it's explained to you why all this torture is actually good for your soul, and how it ultimately brings peace and enlightenment. Your mind made malleable by exhaustion, you believe it and hunker down for another session of physical self-abuse. Again rewarded for your willingness to explore new realms of personal pain, you are allowed to eat as much rice and dhal as you care to scoop into your mouth. One more break, during which you take your fourth and final cold shower of the day, and you repeat the mental and physical challenge of sitting motionless. Having failed once again not to think about anything, you stumble off to your bed at the Ben Franklin approved hour of nine-thirty.

The bizarre part of this whole experience is that I'm loving every minute of it. After less than a week I'm more physically fit and flexible than I've ever been. The teachers are amazing, they push you just hard enough to progress in the posture, then relax you nearly to the point of falling asleep before proceeding to the next posture. The other guests at the ashram, mostly westerners like me, are enthusiastic and friendly. There happens to be a summer camp for kids going on right now, which adds a lot of noise and distraction, bud also provides a healthy amount of levity and spontaneity to what might otherwise become a dull routine.

I'm learning a lot about Vedanta philosophy, and working hard to increase the flexibility of my mind as well as my body -- who ever would have thought I'd be singing Hare Krishna in a temple and enjoying it? I've also been sitting in on the kids' Sanskrit lessons, and the teacher has been tutoring me on the side. I played didgeridoo at the weekly talent show and got a good reception. The food is actually pretty good for being yogi-approved, and I'm getting used to eating with my hands.

More on the yogic philosophy later, but suffice it to say it's fascinating to me. My rational mind still has a lot of resistance to some of the tenets -- the leaps of faith -- but until it gets something solid to hang on to, or gives up fighting, my motivation is the enjoyment I get from the exploration of a new way of looking at the world, and at myself.